European Union Publishes Blacklist of 17 Tax Havens

European Union Publishes Blacklist of 17 Tax Havens

The European Union have published a long-awaited blacklist of global tax havens. 17 countries have been named in the latest step in the bloc’s crackdown for failing to meet agreed tax good governance standards. The 17 countries are: American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates. Blacklisted countries could lose access to EU funds and other possible countermeasures.

“ EU publishes blacklist of 17 tax havens ”

In addition, 47 countries have committed to addressing deficiencies in their tax systems and to meet the required criteria. However, they need to meet EU criteria by the end of 2018, or 2019 for developing countries without financial centres, to avoid being listed.

The European Union is a unique economic and political union between 28 European countries that together cover much of the continent. The predecessor of the EU was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. The first steps were to foster economic cooperation: the idea being that countries that trade with one another become economically interdependent and so more likely to avoid conflict.

The result was the European Economic Community (EEC), created in 1958, and initially increasing economic cooperation between six countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Since then, 22 other members joined and a huge single market (also known as the ‘internal’ market) has been created and continues to develop towards its full potential. What began as a purely economic union has evolved into an organization spanning policy areas, from climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration. A name change from the European Economic Community (EEC) to the European Union (EU) in 1993 reflected this.

The EU has delivered more than half a century of peace, stability and prosperity, helped raise living standards and launched a single European currency: the euro. More than 340 million EU citizens in 19 countries now use it as their currency and enjoy its benefits. Thanks to the abolition of border controls between EU countries, people can travel freely throughout most of the continent. And it has become much easier to live, work and travel abroad in Europe. All EU citizens have the right and freedom to choose in which EU country they want to study, work or retire. Every member country must treat EU citizens in exactly the same way as its own citizens for employment, social security and tax purposes.

The EU’s main economic engine is the single market. It enables most goods, services, money and people to move freely. The EU aims to develop this huge resource to other areas like energy, knowledge and capital markets to ensure that Europeans can draw the maximum benefit from it.